What would happen to Principal Stidwell today?

The other day a friend and I were discussing the excessive debt that people have incurred over the last few years. We wondered why so many folks borrowed money that they clearly could not pay back.

Was it Dr. Spock and the permissive child raising techniques adopted by the parents of the baby boomers? In Spock’s system, a child’s bad behavior bore little or no consequence. But that was clearly not the case for young Jane Evans in Bob Gunter’s column “Foursome found fun playing neighborhood games.”

Jane describes her experience with Principal Charlie Stidwell at Farmin School: “If I was late, he would stand there with a rubber hose in his hand and tap it at me, but he never hit me.” When I looked at the picture of that sweet little Jane Evans in that cute little outfit sitting on her tricycle I had to say, “Thank God he didn’t hit her.”

But those were the days of consequences. Mr. Stidwell got the school named after him, Farmin-Stidwell Elementary. What would have happened to him today? Prison maybe?

TRECY CARPENTER

Hope